Final Fantasy XVI, Bloodborne, And More Will Be PS Exclusives
Blimey, are we still having this conversation?
The extents to which PlayStation will lash out at Xbox for its prospective purchase of the gaming giant Activision Blizzard truly knows no bounds. We've seen them travel across the world to intervene in legal proceedings and have put up barriers at every opportunity to keep Xbox's deal from creating a new gaming monopoly.
Already, the game has changed, what with PlayStation opting for the same tactic in their purchase of Bungie, and it looks as though there's now a new deal in the industry that is forcing gaming companies to buy up all of the developers they can. And PlayStation is seemingly doing this to get back at Xbox.
Now, in a move that doesn't seem to be out of character for the company at this point, PlayStation is going ahead with a plan to lock down a pretty gargantuan franchise.
Modern Final Fantasy Games Are Set To Be PS Exclusives
Click to enlargeAs a part of the legal proceedings that are seeing the Xbox purchase of Activision Blizzard into fruition, Microsoft has revealed that PlayStation is now entering into agreements that will see the newest Final Fantasy titles, Bloodborne, and the Silent Hill 2 remake be console exclusives for Sony's hardware.
"In addition to having outright exclusive content, Sony has also entered into arrangements with third-party publishers which require the 'exclusion' of Xbox from the set of platforms these publishers can distribute their games on," reads a statement from Microsoft.
"Some prominent examples of these agreements include Final Fantasy VII Remake (Square Enix), Bloodborne (From Software), the upcoming Final Fantasy XVI (Square Enix) and the recently announced Silent Hill 2 Remastered (Bloober team)."
This is likely to be a huge shame for FF fans on Xbox, especially as Final Fantasy VII Remake was set to be a timed exclusive to the PS5, with it set to come to Xbox later on. It looks like this is no longer the case.
Xbox Wants Activision Games To Be 'More Broadly Available'
Continuing from this, Microsoft has gone on to insist that they're making this purchase not to box anyone out of Activision Blizzard games, but to make them easier to access for players.
"Microsoft is buying Activision to meet the billions of gamers who choose to play on mobile devices instead of a console or PC, and to learn how to make games that appeal to and engage them," they say. "Xbox also wants to make Activision’s non-mobile games more broadly available."
Time will have to tell if they mean this, as there will be no legal requirement to do so once the contracts are in line, but either way, this deal that was designed to make things easier for consumers is only making it harder so far. Is it over yet?
